Musings and Snippets from a group of people interested in Magistrates' Courts and their work. All cases are based on real ones, but anonymised and composited. All opinions are those of one or more individuals. JPs swear to enforce the law of the land, whether or not they approve of it. Nothing on here constitutes legal advice.

Thursday, March 07, 2013

Taking The Rough With The Smooth

Some days in court can be non-stop, with a constant stream of defendants coming before us for decisions on bail, mode of trial, sentencing and the rest. There might be a trial, perhaps a short one-hour job, or a two or three day case. All are interesting and potentially challenging in their own way, but just occasionally the daily list offers only tedium. Non-CPS work such as unpaid council tax, bus fares, fishing licences can be formulaic and repetitive, especially as the overwhelming majority of defendants do not turn up. The only challenge used to be finding a realistic fine for someone with next to no money. Nowadays, we just look up a printed matrix that often gives an excessive and unfair result on to which we add the new and inflexible surcharge. Not many of us like that.

I don't think that when the laws were put on the statue book that whether Magistrates liked them or not was considered... and rightly so.Unfair? thats very subjective, unfair to your way of thinking possibly.

eg I would have thought that those who failed to pay their council tax were being very unfair to the rest of us who do.

Could you perhaps comment on what would be a realistic punishment for someone with no money? A fine levied at the rate of a packet of fags a week, to be deducted from benefits, does not as far as I can see make a difference to the offender in question.

Yes, there are certainly plenty of people on benefits for whom a few quid would make a dramatic difference, but those people, with careful budgets and little margin for unexpected events, tend not to find themselves in court.

Is there a sentence, either within your powers or without, that is both fair and acts as a deterrent?

Several years ago there was a pilot conducted in Greater Manchester among other areas which provided at least a partial solution. An offender with at least one previous offence on the record, who committed an offence normally only punishable by a fine (or discharge), but with insufficient means to pay the sum appropriate to the offence, could be found to be "a persistent petty offender". The appropriate financial sum could then be converted into hours of unpaid work for the community (community service), allowing a realistic punishment to be imposed. Of course, that provision was more expensive than imposing an uncollectable fine which was eventually written-off, so at the end of the pilot period it disappeared never to be heard of again. A great shame, as it was a rare example of properly thought out action from the Home Office.

What The Papers Said

40 Bloggers That Really Count (Times)There are 30,000 or so unpaid magistrates across England and Wales. For five years, one of them has anonymously detailed the cut and thrust of the job, providing a grimly funny insight into Britain’s sinful underbelly with the same feel and tone as a Hogarth or Dickens.